Flower Study #27- Rose Topiary

Flower Study # 27
Rose Topiary
9 x 12 Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello


If you have been following my blog, you may recall that I am taking a program to learn floral design. It's partly for fun and partly to help get ideas for more intricate and interesting floral arrangements that I can set up for my floral and still life painting subjects rather than just pick up a pre-made bouquet at the grocery store and work with that.

This week I did a rose topiary in class, shown below. It was a lot of fun and I find that I can use much of my art design knowledge in floral design- its just a different (3D) medium. There are some differences, like sometimes in floral arranging if you are doing a centerpiece for a table, you want it to be symmetrically balanced, so it looks even from all viewpoints but in painting, I rarely go for symmetry- in fact it's something I tell myself to avoid so that my compositions can be more dynamic with an uneven division of space.

After I took my arrangement home, I set it up in my studio in front of a white board and side lit it to paint from while the flowers were still fresh. I was working on a small panel to do a quick study so had to compromise on some of the height which I regret, but overall was happy to get the feel of the rose topiary in a suggestive way without having to report every last petal.